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ACLU Demonstrates Flaws in Facial Recognition

posted by janrinok on Saturday July 28 2018, @06:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the they're-criminals dept.

Thexalon writes:

The American Civil Liberties Union, in an effort to demonstrate the dangers of face recognition technology, ran photos of members of Congress against a database of mug shots using Amazon Rekognition software. That test incorrectly identified 28 legislators as criminals (cue the jokes - yes, the Congress members were confirmed to be elsewhere at the time). They hope that demonstrating that this risk hits close to home will get Congress more interested in regulating the use of this technology.

The false matches were disproportionately of people of color, including six members of the Congressional Black Caucus, among them civil rights legend Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.). These results demonstrate why Congress should join the ACLU in calling for a moratorium on law enforcement use of face surveillance.

[...] If law enforcement is using Amazon Rekognition, it’s not hard to imagine a police officer getting a “match” indicating that a person has a previous concealed-weapon arrest, biasing the officer before an encounter even begins. Or an individual getting a knock on the door from law enforcement, and being questioned or having their home searched, based on a false identification.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Snotnose on Saturday July 28 2018, @11:29PM (2 children)

    by Snotnose (1623) on Saturday July 28 2018, @11:29PM (#714140)

    The whole idea is simply to sort through massive datasets that no human could ever hope to make use of and cull out a few matches

    That's all well and good, until you land on the list of "faces that look like a bad guy". Whatcha gonna do, wear a ski mask when out in public?

    Remember the guys who share the same name as bad guys, they carry around notes from judges that say they aren't the bad guy, and get arrested anyway.

    --
    My ducks are not in a row. I don't know where some of them are, and I'm pretty sure one of them is a turkey.
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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @12:30AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @12:30AM (#714158)

    Yeah, this is apparently a brand new problem the alt-right has never seen before. Coincidentally they seem to be overwhelmingly white. We just need a research grant to find out if it is correlation or causation!

  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday July 29 2018, @07:04AM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Sunday July 29 2018, @07:04AM (#714251) Homepage Journal

    There was at one time another Washington State resident named Michael David Crawford who was a registered sex offender. He did time in Walla Walla starting in 2005.

    In 2012, he put on "homemade body armor" including a helmet with metal plates, stole a car, led the Lakewood Police on a high-speed chase then crashed the car. He then started shooting at the Police.

    Hilarity ensued.

    Surely there is some reason?

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]